Disabling sleep merchants, those landlords who rent out unsanitary housing at high prices, requires lengthy, costly and uncertain legal proceedings. The law for access to housing and renovated town planning (ALUR law of March 24, 2014), then carried by Cécile Duflot, wanted to put in the hands of mayors a tool, this time preventive: the rental permit. It obliges any lessor whose housing is located within a defined perimeter and with degraded housing to apply for an authorization before signing a lease.
The measure started slowly, its implementing decree not being published until December 19, 2016, before the law on housing, development and digital development (ELAN law, of November 23, 2018) clarified the jurisdiction, in this area, of intermunicipal co-operation which can, if necessary, delegate it to the municipality.
In 2018, only twenty cities had adopted the rental permit: there are more than a hundred today, large or small, rural or urban, from all political stripes, and the list is growing every day.
The metropolis of Lille was a pioneer, from April 2019, and rather made in lace. Out of 95 municipalities, 22, including Lille and its inner suburbs, Roubaix and Tourcoing, have established it in their degraded neighborhoods, and have created three procedures: simple declaration of rental, with tacit agreement in the event of no response; prior authorization with inspection of the apartment; authorization to divide a large apartment or a pavilion into several small apartments, a technique very popular with sleep merchants to maximize profitability. “Between March 2019 and March 2021, we processed 10,200 requests, welcomes Anne Voituriez, mayor of Loos and vice-president of the metropolis, in charge of housing. Half of them were accepted unconditionally, 9% rejected and 41% subject to upgrading work. Some landlords are still unaware of the rental permit, but it has really triggered a virtuous cycle of visible improvement in neighborhoods. “
“An entry key”
The law provides, for reluctant donors, fines of 5,000 to 15,000 euros imposed by the prefect, and the prefectures do not hesitate to crack down and make it known. That of Seine-Saint-Denis, where 27 municipalities have adopted the rental permit for 28,000 homes, announced on April 16, “Ten fines pronounced in Villemomble, Montfermeil, La Courneuve and Pierrefitte, in amounts of up to 10,000 euros, and 21 offenses under investigation”.
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